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General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: Tall Chimney

« on: November 19, 2019, 07:44:25 AM »

OK, thanks for the info guys.  I think I will take your advice and get some cheap galvanized pipe, go pretty tall with it and see what it does.  I would have to add 14' to what I already have to just get even with the peak of the house.  I don't kn ow if I will get that tall or not, but hopefully whatever I do will be an improvement. 

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General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: Tall Chimney

« on: November 13, 2019, 07:56:55 AM »

Thanks E. Yoder, yes a gasser would make life easier and more efficient, I'll ask Santa for one this year...I'm pretty sure I know what she..I mean he will say!  Being that this is the hand I've been dealt and working with what I have, what would you suggest?  I know you have a lot of knowledge on this stuff so I'm all ears.  Do you think it is worth trying to extend the chimney another 4 or 8 feet, and just see how it responds?  One concern I have is that I'm not real sure that I'll achieve anything at all unless the top of the chimney is completely above the top of the roof line of the house.  What do you think?

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General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Tall Chimney

« on: November 12, 2019, 11:25:08 AM »

I have a basic question to see if anybody can answer.  Is there any negative effects of having a rather tall chimney/stack?  Stove is pretty close to house and when the wind is blowing the right direction, it can get pretty smoky all around the house.  I'd like to try to get the exhaust up a little higher to see if it helps.  It's already up about 10 feet, the top of the house is about 25 feet.  Any suggestions? 

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General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: Concrete Slab Inlet and outlet temps

« on: December 13, 2018, 07:14:56 AM »

Speeding the pump up on your floor is going to do nothing besides raise your electric bill

Thanks wreckit87!   That being said, do you like medium or low in my application?  On the medium setting all circuits are moving about .6 GPM.  I really don't know what the GPM's are on the low setting, I can switch it and see. 

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General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: Rig a shop vac to pull out ash?

« on: December 12, 2018, 02:59:28 PM »

I'm not sure why, but I won't ask.  As far as the shop vac capabilities....why not?  Go for it!  Ash can't be any worse on a shop vac than drywall dust. 

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General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: Concrete Slab Inlet and outlet temps

« on: December 12, 2018, 02:49:05 PM »

Speed your water up to close that delta-t ! ......and don't be running full on hot water thur that concrete floor !

I currently have the supply water temp to 100, and thought about going down to around 95 or so.  At the 100 degree supply water, I am getting right at 80 degree return water.  The pump speed is something I have not thought about too much and have not had time to experiment with.  The pump is a 15-58 that I am running on medium speed.  I started with medium and have never changed it from there.  I read a lot about higher speeds being the cause of cavitation, maybe that is why I have stayed from high.  I never really had an explanation on the advantages/disadvantages of pump speed....I'm all ears!   

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General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: Concrete Slab Inlet and outlet temps

« on: December 12, 2018, 09:26:39 AM »

Thanks again guys! 

It is definitely a Honeywell unit.  I will pop that cover off and take a look at that.  It sounds like this might be one step closer to preventing my fire from burning out.  I came home last night from work and the fire was out again.  Temp in house was 1 degree above the set-point and was probably that way for several hours during the day with no burn cycles happening throughout the day.  I said screw it, looked at the forecast, and I probably won't build a fire again until the weekend. 

I know that another problem is that here in SE Kansas, we can have serious temp swings in the winter and for example, our highs were in the 50's last couple of days with lows in the low-20's.  We can get severe Colorado-Canadian cold from the Northwest, or we can get warmer Gulf air from the Southwest...and sometimes we can get both in the same week. 

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General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: Concrete Slab Inlet and outlet temps

« on: December 11, 2018, 11:06:53 AM »

OK, I'm going to try to lower the SWT a little more still.  When you say differential, are you talking about the aquastat on/off differential?  If so, I did not know that was an adjustment that I could make.  I know I can change the set point temp, but I did not know I can adjust the differential...I will look at that tonight.  Yesterday for an example, I checked/loaded stove at lunch, about 12:30, looked at it when I got home from work, about 5:30, it it honestly looked like it had not even performed a heat cycle in that amount of time.  It blows my mind that just the constant circulation of water itself doesn't drop water temp enough to cycle at least once in that time period....hence your suggestion of tightening up the aquastat differential.....   right?   

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General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: Concrete Slab Inlet and outlet temps

« on: December 10, 2018, 10:21:05 AM »

Ok, I am totally a believer in the lower input temperatures sent into the floor!  It really works.  I have went all weekend running a 100 degree SWT, and at the beginning of a cycle, the RWT is right around 77-78 degrees.  It takes quite awhile, maybe 30-45 minutes, but the RWT will rise to about 80 to maybe 81 degrees and sit there for some time before the wall thermostat is satisfied at a 72 degree set point.   I will continue to play with the Supply water temp, running it down slightly more to see what it will do with the return temps.  I need to purchase an infra-red thermometer to check floor surface temps. 

The biggest problem I am facing now is the fact that once my wall thermostat is satisfied, and shuts the circulating pump off, my living space is so tight, that such a long period of time may pass before the wall thermostat calls for heat again, and in the mean time, I am loosing my fire in the OWB.  Hardy H2, I have removed both screws from the blower flap, I have turned the aquastat up to 175 set point.  In the past couple of weeks, I have come home from work to absolutely no fire in the box, having to unload and re-start a fire.  This is VERY frustrating.  I am simply not getting enough burn cycles during the middle of the day, allowing the fire to burn out.  Some may say this is a good problem, but really, it sucks.  This is an issue that I do not know how to overcome.  Maybe it will be better since I have lowered the SWT, creating a more constant cooler RWT to the boiler, therefore creating a few more burn cycles throughout the day.  Yesterday, being Sunday, I found the Wall Thermostat at 72 degrees, pump off, and about 4 hours later, it was 73 degrees in the house.  I ended up opening windows to get some cool air in the house (yesterdays high was about 39 or 40).  This is my year #2 and I'm still learning as I go!

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General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: Concrete Slab Inlet and outlet temps

« on: December 05, 2018, 07:21:12 AM »

wreckit87, I did a little playing last night.  I discovered something interesting that I have no idea what it means.  I ran my input water down to 100 degrees (from 120 degrees), and my output water temp only changed by about 1 degree at the most, looks like it is coming out at about 79 degrees.  I'm trying to watch and record to on/off times and watching my thermostat like a hawk, but that job is about impossible unless you have nothing else to do while at home.  I'm just would have thought that dropping my input water 20 degrees would have affected the output water temps more.  Would you suggest I drop some more to find some sort of "sweet spot".  I think understand what you are saying about the ideal "continuous ultimate-temp water flow", versus trying to "charge" the slab with hotter water and expecting it to radiate upwards to satisfy the thermostat in great, wider temp swings.  Am I catching on?

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General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: Concrete Slab Inlet and outlet temps

« on: December 04, 2018, 11:52:58 AM »

What sort of trial and error landed you at 120? Is this slab insulated both underneath and around the perimeter? 40 degrees is a huge delta T for a slab that's been running. Not necessarily for concrete longevity, but you want to use the lowest water temp you can get away with both for efficiency and comfort. I play with mine a lot, and it's currently set at 95 degrees with a 72 degree return. Every one of my full installs ( I own and operate a hydronic radiant heating company) are set to 100 degrees off the bat and adjusted from there if necessary.

As for the slab damage, I don't have any catastrophic photos but I can assure you that anything over 140 WILL ruin a slab's heat transfer. The concrete around the tubing turns to powder and essentially you'd need to keep raising the water temp until it no longer keeps up because the tubing doesn't give up the heat to the concrete. Bad idea.

wreckit87, that is the most information on the subject that I have heard yet, and I thank you for that!  My building is 60x40, I have a 1" owens-corning pink board + plastic under the slab and I'm not really sure what is on the sides if anything.  My building is completely spray-foam insulated, top and sides for a very tight building.  I have not played with lowering the input temps much at all.  Not being a professional myself, I guess that I figured by lowering the input temps, my output temps would only lower as well, therefore not producing the heat as needed to keep up with the demand.  I am beginning to see the concept of the lower temps having some benefit.  I'm curious, what type of room temperature are you set at with your 95 degree in and 72 degree out?  Another characteristic of my building is that the thermostat is in the living side of the building, set at 72 degrees, basic air thermostat only, and from what I am seeing, when it is calling for heat, the secondary pump will run for around 1.5-2.0 hours to regain the set-point temperature.  Then, I have seen it up to 5 hours before it calls for the heat cycle to start again.  Is there a "normal" time frame from the time the thermostat turns the pump on to the time the thermostat turns the pump off???  Also, it has not been super cold here yet.   Does any of this sound abnormal or crazy??  I appreciate your input....thanks!

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General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: Concrete Slab Inlet and outlet temps

« on: November 30, 2018, 06:36:32 AM »

That is funny to hear that you are running full-heated, not tempered down water into your floor.  I did that exact thing for 2 seasons until I had more and more people tell me that I was stupid for doing that because of the harm that will be caused to the floor.  Well, to say the least, I was a doubter, but I'm a great listener.  I still wanted to see some evidence of the claims of damage.  Keep in mind that where I live in southeast Kansas, there seems to be ABSOLUTELY NO professionals on heated concrete floors, so I have never been able to verify these claims of floor damage.  All that being said, I had no problems with moving forward, creating a primary and secondary loop, adding an inside pump and a mixing valve.  I got all of that done in a weekend.  It still bugs me that I have never heard of a single case of legit concrete damage from running 150-170 degree water through the floor.  Anybody out there want to share their first hand experiences? 

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General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Concrete Slab Inlet and outlet temps

« on: November 29, 2018, 07:35:51 AM »

Anybody out there running solely a heated slab, I have a question.  What kind of temperature differentials are you seeing in your system between the water temps you have entering the slab and the temps you have exiting the slab.  I know that there are so many variables here, but I am really curious what others are experiencing.  I heat a 2400 sq ft. slab, 8 circuits, all are the same "zone", however I do control water flow differently in some of the circuits.  I am running a standard wall mounted digital thermostat (air).  After some trial and error, I have landed on 120 degree water going in the slab, and almost always, I have 79-81 degree water coming out of the slab.

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General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: Thru the roof stove pipe

« on: August 29, 2018, 07:19:03 AM »

All great ideas!  I am totally on board with the hole in the roof being slightly larger than the pipe and just going with that.  I think that will be great.  This is proof that I am really good at over-thinking things!

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General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Thru the roof stove pipe

« on: August 28, 2018, 02:46:36 PM »

I have a Hardy H2, this summer I have installed a metal carport over the top of the stove to keep me and the wood out of the weather.  I am looking for ideas / suggestions on materials I should use to get my stove pipe through the roof.  Metal roof only, no wood anywhere.  One worry is how stinking hot that pipe can get sometimes (when really cooking, the stainless stock pipe is glowing red).  This makes we wonder and worry about rubber-type boots and such.  From the stove to the roof-line will be approx 2-3 feet.  Let the suggestions fly.  I am no professional, but I'm not afraid to try!